Nightshade (Alex Rider #12)

Disclaimer: personal opinion only! Please take it with a pinch of salt. The only reason for me to leave this comment is hopefully Mr Horowitz could notice it and take into consideration for his future Alex Rider books. I’m really glad that Nightshade, following the footsteps of Scorpia Rising and Never Say Die, continues its departure from the “traditional” “Alex Rider formula” which are prevalent from Book 1 to Book 7. I believe what is particularly remarkable about this book is that this book was written like a movie script; rather than a sequential narrative, it has clear scene cuts and built-ups, and with a very clear Three Act Structure (and interesting Bible reference!). Also, it is dynamic in the sense that this book is no longer just about Alex, but we see more character developments of Mrs Jones, Mr Crawley and various other characters. Traditionally, those characters are on the sidelines, and only Alex and his antagonists are the focus. I personally like this way of story-telling – more dimensions, as compared to the linear story telling of Stormbreaker and a few other books. It is also interesting to see how Alex improvise along the way without his usual gadgets. Gadgets may make things too easy for him. We want to see more of Alex rise to the occasion and make the most out of whatever is available to him. Just some minor remark on what I think could be the areas of improvement here. I will try to make this as vague as possible in order not to spoil the plot, but I believe readers may understand after reading the entire book. There are certain elements of similarity between Stormbreaker (Third Act), Scorpia (around First to Second Act) and this book. It is my sincere hope that future books could break out of this pattern – to give readers more surprises! 🙂 Also, there is a certain action scene that bears the resemblance of that of a certain 2007 movie. But I believe this is purely coincidental! Overall, great book! Maybe one day there is going to be a TV series about it!

As a long, LONG time fan of this series since the very first book came out, I have been keeping up with the reboot of the series almost reluctantly. Enjoying myself, no doubt, but finding myself disappointed as my hands-down favorite book series seemingly dried up (like a lot of franchises do) with the disappointing and forgettable “Never say die” and the far flawed and cheesy “Secret weapon.” I planned on getting nightshade hoping that, at best, it would be better than the two previous installments. Not only was I not disappointed by this book, but it exceeded my expectations to become one of the favorite books in the entire series (surprising for a reboot, I know) *SPOILER REVIEW* Nightshade follows what I would like to call the Scorpia plot of Alex rider stories. Or indeed, never say die officially tied that story up and Nightshade focuses on Alex rider picking up the pieces after what you could call the main plot of the series if officially finished. It does this in a way that isn’t forced or reluctant, but rather brilliant in that it takes all the remaining loose ends from Scorpia (Julius griefs death and Alan blunts retirement, mostly) and uses those to craft a new story that doesn’t feel forced in the slightest. A new threat appears, and mrs Jones being the new head of MI6 has to fight it, along with establishing her presence among the other secret services of Britain, and uses Alex under the cover of a recently deceased Julius to do it. None of those points were created in this book, and that’s my point exactly. This story wasn’t created, it feasibly was going to happen anyways. Seeing Alex pretend to be Julius was an absolute delight and completely turned the tables in a very entertaining way. This book fleshed out Gibraltar and let us long time fans learn more about a very interesting location from the old series, even keeping faithful to the minor details that only a minority of people would notice. Overall I enjoyed that segment a lot. Let’s talk about nightshade. Early on in the book, the term ”more evil than Scorpia” was tossed around and I found myself quite annoyed at that. Scorpia is built as the most dangerous villain corps in all the book series and I didn’t enjoy Hearing it brushed aside. I found however that this statement was quite true the more I thought about it, they aren’t brushing Scorpia aside, nightshade is just a brilliant reimagining of The same principal, Scorpia had a large council and no beliefs, while nightshade is four villains who we will learn more about and they are manipulating kids to be, in a sense, evil without even knowing it. I can definitely understand why people would dislike them more. Scorpia is arguably a more well written enemy, but I am very excited to follow up on Alex defeating nightshade in a similar story beat, and I’m very glad that this book took the time to established it, rather than just having Alex completely destroy them in the end. Needless to say the “cliffhanger” has me very excited! I give this book five stars. My list so far is as follows: 1.Snakehead 2.Scorpia rising 3.Nightshade 4.Arc angel 5.Scorpia 6.Point blank 7.Never say die 8.Stormbreaker 9.Eagle strike 10.Crocodile tears 11.Sketon key 12. Secret weapon

I started reading these book back in middle school in 2007. On of my favorite series to read. Then high school and college came and afterwards came my adult life. I didn\’t keep up with any new books coming out. Honestly I thought Russian Roulette was the last book in the series. I am so happy to be wrong about that bit of information. My hisband told me about the showing coming out soon and he knew nothing about this series. I enjoyed filling him in on all my stored knowledge of this series! Then finding out I had more to read! This was another great Alex Rider mission! I need more now lol Can\’t wait for the next book!

The Alex Rider series peaked somewhere between Scorpia and Scorpia Rising. I\’ve been following the series since I was a kid in the early 2010s and I occasionally go back to read the old books fondly, even now. However, the last two books have left me pretty disappointed. It has gotten rather formulaic with a plot that can be summarized as 1\\ Evil organization hatches complicating plan for money 2\\ Alex is the only person at MI6 qualified to investigate, or stumbles into it by accident 3 \\ Alex gets caught by evil person who explains their plan 4\\ Evil person underestimates Alex 5\\ Alex saves the day. I do wish there was more emotional development of Alex\’s character – it seems rather unrealistic that someone who has gone through all that he does in the books does not need therapy and isn\’t more affected.

THE GOOD, – After the dramatic events of ‘Scorpia Rising’, the sequel ‘Never Say Die’ felt a bit of a cheap cop-out to me (I appreciate some people will hold differing opinions on that!) But this is a much better attempt at ‘resetting’ the Rider series by Horowitz, with a new, interesting and most importantly different enemy to face off against. – This is one of, if not the longest, Rider story yet (haven’t checked definitively so don’t hold me to it!), but it still doesn’t felt slow or dragged out in any way. As ever, the writing is snappy, detailed and engaging all at once – one of the outstanding hallmarks of this series that keeps me coming back! – and strikes a good balance between action and those important reflective moments to understand what is going on inside Alex’s head. If anything, it could probably have done with another couple of chapters at the end but I’ll come onto that down below. – If you’ve read the previous novels (which you really must in order to enjoy this one) then it’s no secret to say that some favourite characters and locations return to play their part. This is a nice reward to loyal readers of the series! But they never feel ‘throwaway’, the plot does a good job of making all characters and settings feel important. – Finally, although I won’t spoil the ending, it leaves considerable space for a new story arc that Horowitz can develop further with some important questions still to be answered. This is important, to prevent the Rider series from feeling like it has been dragged out for money reasons only since the decision to restart again after initially planning to end after ‘Scorpia Rising’. Although the jury remains out on this decision for me (it seemed like a perfectly believable and satisfying ending), this book gives the series a new direction which Never Say Die did not (in my humble opinion!) THE BAD, – Most frustratingly for me, I guessed the plot and main answers to the ‘puzzle’ fairly early on, which left me slightly…empty of the usual thrill I get. What was left was still a very enjoyable read, with a lot of curiously about HOW it would be resolved, but something was missing in that the plot seemed more simple than usual. Which is odd given the length of the book. Now, I appreciate that I’m a long time reader, having started when the original ‘Stormbreaker’ novel came out all those years ago. So as an adult now, I have hopefully improved my ability to predict the plots of this series! But even taking this into account, I’m still left with a slight feeling Horowitz could have taken a few more chances with the overall ‘aim’ of the villain, even if the character themselves is quite interesting, as mentioned above. It’s possible this may be developed further in future books, of course! – The ending could have done with a bit more explanation in my opinion. Not because it didn’t make sense – as mentioned above, it was almost too easy to follow! – but there are a few too many important plot holes left unanswered for me. Some of these may well be dealt with in future books and it’s difficult to explain what I mean without giving away some of the plot. The best way I can find is to say that certain people seem to end up knowing key information without any explanation of how. In addition, it seems quite hard to believe NO ONE at MI6 worked out what was happening…but then again, it’s a story and the plot dictates that. Similarly, some of Alex’s stunts as ever border on the ‘Indiana Jones’ scale of incredulity, but I’m cool with this – it’s all part of the fun after all! Although I can’t help wondering just how a message hasn’t yet spread effectively throughout the crime world about a certain boy spy with fair hair… – …which brings me nicely onto my last and probably most controversial point. As mentioned earlier, I personally felt Scorpia Rising was a good, clear ending for the series so the decision to restart again held considerable risk for me. And it still feels like the series is searching to regain earlier momentum. It’s a better attempt than Never Say Die, but there is no getting away from the fact that most of the key personal questions about Alex and his life have already been answered. AH attempts to try and deal with this by taking it in a different direction in this book and, to be fair, it’s a good effort. And maybe that’s not even important to you! But for me, the mysteries of Alex’s history in earlier books are always going to be a struggle to live up to! Also – no Smithers! Which is a big loss to the series – surely there could have been some way to bring him back? SUMMING UP… To many people, just having a new Rider book will be enough in itself. And to be fair, there’s also a part of me that is very glad to have him back also! I really enjoyed reading this book and it was a genuine struggle to put it down at times, it’s fast moving and engaging. Is it in my top 3 Alex Rider stories? No, probably not even top 5 to be honest. But it’s hovering somewhere around the middle, which is good going compared with the letdown of Never Say Die. To reboot a series after initially intending to end it so comprehensively (as admitted Horowitz himself) is no easy task. But this book is a fine attempt and continues to fuel my enthusiasm for Alex and his adventures! Well done Mr Horowitz – looking forward to the next instalment now!

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